Catherine Cookson - The Gambling Man

But now, after his visit to Birchingham House, he was seeing the boat house for what it was, a tumbledown riverside shack, and he thought, I must have been mad to pay thirty-five pounds for the goodwill of that. Look where it’s landed me. And the gate shut once again on his thinking as an inner voice said, ‘Aye; and John George.’

They were married on the Saturday after Easter. It was a quiet affair in that they hadn’t a big ceilidh. They went by brake to the Catholic church in Jarrow, together with Ruth, Paddy, Lizzie, Jimmy, and Bill Waggett. A great deal of tact and persuasion had to be used on Gran Waggett in order that she should stay behind. Who was going to help Kathleen Leary with the tables? And anyway, Kathleen being who she was needed somebody to direct her, and who better than Gran herself?

Janie’s wedding finery was plain but good, for her flounced grey coat had once belonged to her mistress, as had also the blue flowered cotton dress she wore underneath. Her blue straw hat she had bought herself, and her new brown buttoned boots too.

She was trembling as she knelt at the altar rails, but then the church was icy cold and the priest himself looked blue in the face and weary into the bargain. He mumbled the questions: Wilt thou have this man? Wilt thou have this woman? And they in turn mumbled back.

After they had signed their names and Rory had kissed her in front of them all they left the church and got into the brake again, which was now surrounded by a crowd of screaming children shouting ‘Hoy a ha’penny oot! Hoy a ha’penny oot!’

They had come prepared with ha’pennies. Ruth and Lizzie and Jimmy threw them out from both sides of the brake; but they were soon finished and when there were no more forthcoming the shouts that followed them now were, ‘Shabby weddin’ . . . shabby weddin’,’ and then the concerted chorus of:

The fathers laughed and Ruth clicked her tongue and Lizzie said, ‘If I was out there I’d skite the hunger off them. By God! I would.’ But Janie and Rory just smiled, and Jimmy, sitting silently at the top end of the brake, his hands dangling between his knees, looked at them, and part of him was happy, and part of him, a deep hidden part, was aching.

Out of decency Jimmy did not immediately go down to the yard. The young married couple were to have the place to themselves until Monday, and on Monday morning the new pattern of life was to begin, for Janie had had her way and was continuing to go daily to the Buckhams’.

Of course, in the back of her mind she knew that the three shillings had been a great inducement to Rory seeing her side of the matter, for now that he wasn’t gaming there was no way to supplement his income, and what was more, as she had pointed out, he would be expected to give a bit of help at home since he was depriving them of both his own and Jimmy’s money. So the arrangement was that, until Jimmy got some orders, for his sculler was almost finished, then she would continue to go daily to her place . . .

Having clambered up the steps in the dark and unlocked the door and dropped their bundles and a bass hamper on to the floor, they clung to each other in the darkness, gasping and laughing after the exertion of humping the baggage from where the cart had dropped them at the far end of the road.

‘Where’s the candle?’

‘On the mantelpiece of course.’ She was still laughing.

He struck a match and lit the candle, then held it up as he looked towards the table on which the lamp stood.

When the lamp was lit he said, ‘Well, there you are now, home sweet home.’

Janie stood and looked about her. ‘I’ll have to get stuck in here at nights,’ she said.

‘Well, if you will go working in the day-time, Mrs Connor.’ He pulled her to him again and they stood pressed close looking silently now into each other’s face. ‘Happy?’

She smiled softly, ‘Ever so.’

‘It’s not going to be an easy life.’

‘Huh! what do I care about that as long as we’re together. Easy life?’ She shook her head. ‘I’d go fish guttin’ if I could help you, an’ you know how I hate guttin’ fish, even when we used to get them for practically nowt from the quay. Do you remember walkin’ all the way down into Shields and getting a huge basketful for threepence?’

‘Only because they were on the point of going rotten.’

‘Ger-away with you . . . Do you want something to eat?’

‘No.’

‘You’re not hungry?’

‘Not for food.’

Her lips pressed tightly together; she closed her eyes and bowed her head.

He now put his hands up to her hair and unpinned her hat and throwing it aside, unbuttoned her coat.

‘I’ll have to get these bundles unpacked and . . . and tidied up.’

He went on undoing the buttons. ‘There’s all day the morrow and the next day and the next day and the next, all our life to undo bundles . . .’

‘Hie! what’re you doin’? That’s me good coat. Look, it’s on the floor.’

‘Leave it on the floor; there’s more to follow.’

‘Rory! Rory! the bed isn’t made up.’

‘The bed is made up, I saw to it.’

‘Oh Rory! . . . An’ I’m cold, I’m cold, I’m cold. I’ll have to get me nightie.’

‘You’re not going to need a nightie.’

‘Aw, Rory! . . . Eeh!’ She let out a squeal as, dressed only in her knickers and shift, he swung her up into his arms and carried her through into the bedroom and dropped her on to the bed. She lay there just where he had dropped her and in the dim light reflected from the kitchen she watched him throw off his clothes.

When he jumped on to the bed beside her she squealed and said, ‘Eeh! the lamp.’

‘The lamp can wait.’

They were pressed close, but she was protesting slightly, she didn’t want to be rushed. She was a bit afraid of this thing. If she could only make him take it quietly—lead up to it sort of. Her grannie had said it hurt like hell. His lips were moving round her face when she murmured, in a futile effort to stem his ardour, ‘Oh Rory, Rory, I’ll never be happier than I am at this minute. It’s been a wonderful day, hasn’t it? . . . They were all so good, an’ they enjoyed themselves, didn’t they? I bet they’ll keep up the jollification all night.’ She moaned softly as his hands moved over her; then, her voice trailing weakly away, she ended, ‘If-only-John-George-had-been-there . . .’

His hands ceased their groping, his lips became still on her breast and she screamed out now as he actually pushed her from him with such force that her shoulders hit the wall as he yelled at her, ‘God Almighty! can’t you give him a rest? What’ve you got to bring him up now for, at this minute? You did it on purpose. You did! ’

In the silence that followed he listened to her gasping. Then she was in his arms again and he was rocking her. ‘Oh lass, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. Did I hurt you? I’m sorry, I’m sorry. It was only, well, you know, I’ve waited so long . . . And, and . . .’

When she didn’t answer him, or make any sound, he said softly, ‘Janie. Janie. Say something.’ What she said was, ‘It’s all right. It’s all right.’

‘I love you. I love you, Janie. Aw, I love you. If I lost you I’d go mad, barmy.’

‘It’s all right. It’s all right, you won’t lose me.’

‘Will you always love me?’

‘Always.’

‘You promise?’

‘Aye, I promise.’

‘I’ll never love anybody in me life but you, I couldn’t. Aw, Janie, Janie . . .’